CRISIS NARRATIVE IN SOCIAL NETWORKS: PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The work is devoted to the study of the psychological features of the crisis narratives in social networks, in particular, its potential as a psychological resource. The term ‘crisis narrative’ was introduced by the author earlier for stories generated by persons in the context of a crisis situation to describe their feelings and experiences. The phenomenon of the crisis narrative in the posts of social network users has not yet been the subject of psychological research. The work was performed on the social media posts Facebook and Instagram. Using content analysis methods, more than 30 posts were analyzed, which were identified as ‘crisis’ and divided into text, visual and hybrid. The heightened emotionality of crisis narratives and their orientation towards a dialogue with the addressee who can understand and share the author’s experiences are noted. The target orientation of the posts of the crisis narratives is analyzed in detail as well as the motivation of the authors, which consists of the need for virtual psychological support, the need for blogging and the use of a social network platform to acquaint their circle of readers with general author’s thoughts. The thesis about the resource role played by crisis narratives in social networks is argued. The functions that are performed by the posts of the narrative plan in the context of the crisis are highlighted: (1) it is a form of organization and streamlining of the flow of information that is difficult to accept and understand; (2) awareness and understanding of the values that a person professes; (3) selection of like-minded people and increasing their cohesion; (4) conscious mutual collective support of like-minded people by all available means. Parallels with analogues of ‘crisis narratives’ in fiction are drawn. Emphasis is placed on the need for a person to develop his own conscious development strategy in difficult circumstances.